The Little Fork Family Advocacy Center celebrated its grand opening on March 8, 2023. The Little Fork Family Advocacy Center is located at 3020 Hospital Drive in Batavia, on the Mercy Health – Clermont Hospital Campus. Photo courtesy Clermont Chamber of Commerce.
A dream more than 10 years in the making becoming a reality
Pictured is Scott O’Reilly, Executive Director of the Little Fork Family Advocacy Center, located at 3020 Hospital Drive in Batavia, speaking from the podium during the center’s grand opening event on March 8, 2023. Photo courtesy Clermont Chamber of Commerce.
The Little Fork Family Advocacy Center celebrated its grand opening on March 8.
The Little Fork Family Advocacy Center is a non-profit organization and facility that provides comprehensive medical and aftercare services to victims of physical and sexual violence, and to families that have experienced trauma.
The Little Fork Family Advocacy Center is located at 3020 Hospital Drive in Batavia, on the Mercy Health – Clermont Hospital Campus.
On its website, the Little Fork Family Advocacy Center is described as “unprecedented in its collaborative approach and its focus on the care of an entire family. Government, medical, and aftercare services will be under one roof, making the recovery process more accessible to more people. This puts the focus on healing for victims and their families – affecting generations to come.”
Little Fork Family Advocacy Center partner agencies include:
– Mercy Health – Clermont Hospital.
– Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Mayerson Center.
– Child Focus.
– Government agencies representing Clermont, Adams, Highland, and Brown Counties.
– YWCA.
– CASA.
– Beech Acres Parenting Center.
– New Path.
Former Clermont County Assistant Prosecutor Scott O’Reilly is the Executive Director of the Little Fork Family Advocacy Center.
O’Reilly has been championing the Little Fork Family Advocacy Center for some 10 years.
O’Reilly explained that he began working in the Clermont County Assistant Prosecutor’s Office in 2002; by 2013 he had asked to be in charge of all the child abuse cases, that included sexual and physical abuse cases, and his request was granted.
It was around that time that O’Reilly started working with select detectives to run through case reviews to improve investigations and develop a protocol for handling the cases; the process was new to Clermont County, O’Reilly said.
As the group started running its case reviews, O’Reilly realized that community partners needed to be added to the process.
“I just started thinking more about what happens to the families after these cases are done,” he explained.
He reached out to the Mayerson Center, located in Clifton, to see if the center could bring its services east, closer to Clermont County.
“I wanted to replicate what the Mayerson Center does in Clifton, using their staff, and bring it to a closer geographic proximity, and I also wanted to make it a one-stop stop, where we could address long-term family issues, and we could link these families with the appropriate provider,” O’Reilly realized explained.
Time marched on, and O’Reilly continued to think through the development of the Little Fork Family Advocacy Center.
In March 2020, fundraising efforts to build the center on Bauer Road had been underway for more than two years, but the construction project was delayed when COVID-19 canceled that year’s big fundraising event.
“As that went on, I decided I didn’t want to wait anymore,” O’Reilly said. “I didn’t want to try to go and raise $6 million, I wanted to raise enough money to open on a smaller scale and get started; I just wanted to get started.”
It was at that time that O’Reilly approached Mercy Hospital asking for some space that Little Fork Family Advocacy Center could lease from the hospital.
The hospital suggested they might use a 2,000-square-foot space in an old cancer wing that needed some renovations.
O’Reilly and the Little Fork Family Advocacy Center fundraising team fundraised hundreds of thousands of dollars to overhaul the space, which has taken the better part of the last 12 to 18 months.
On the eve of the ribbon cutting, O’Reilly said that the experience has felt surreal.
“I know a lot of people didn’t think it would ever happen, and I was resolute that I was not going to stop until it happened,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that I’ve learned; I was obviously naive. When you start out with an idea and you’re wanting to help out kids and families, which seems like a great goal, but there are a lot of details that need to be filled in.”
He added, “I am thankful for so many different people who have helped financially, with advice, with legal advice; there are so many different aspects of making this work, and, every time it looked like things were going to get unwound, we just worked harder to make sure that it would keep going. It’s a testament to so many different people not giving up.”
The services of the Little Fork Family Advocacy Center are available to anyone, even those who have not gone through the court process.
“My concern has always been how to address family needs after the fact,” O’Reilly explained, noting people are welcome to walk through the front door, without a referral, to be served.
He said, “Our purpose is going to be to help link families to their needs, so it doesn’t have to be someone who is coming through the court system. If there are families who are struggling in different capacities or being affected by different types of trauma, we will link those families to where they need to go.”
To learn more about the Little Fork Family Advocacy Center, visit https://littleforkfamilyac.org/.